


The Last Night

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-09
Updated: 2008-04-09
Packaged: 2019-01-19 22:38:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12419727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: James thinks this will be the last thing he hears, as Voldemort attacks...





	The Last Night

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

He hears her feet pounding up the stairs, and remembers, incongruously, the times he’s heard those same feet pounding up those same stairs when he’s been listening to the radio or something, and teased her; ‘The Twenty Tonne Doe’, he would laugh. ‘The Iron Lion’. He thinks...no, he knows, in the pit of his soul, that this is the last time he’ll hear those feet pounding up those stairs, no matter what happens next. 

He hadn’t grabbed his wand on running through to the explosion. There hadn’t been time, there hadn’t been the instinct; stupid, really, since his first instinct, his primary and ultimate instinct, was to seize a wand, even from his babyhood. Why had it failed him now? Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lily disappear around the top of the stairs and he wishes, slightly, that he could have at least been looking at her as he died. He couldn’t, of course, all he could hope was that she could climb out the window or something with Harry.  If anyone could, it would be she, and the terror and fury and determination didn’t stop the rush of fierce pride for his wife.

All this passed through his mind in a heartbeat. There was nothing but those red pitted eyes watching him, faintly amused. 

“You won’t run?” the sibilance remained even in a sentence that had no sounds to hiss. It was a strange, foggy effect. James wanted to shake his head to clear that voice away. 

“No,” he said. “I won’t run.”

“I wanted to watch you die,” said the hooded figure, and James knows if he moves, just one finger, he will be killed. Perhaps he can stall Voldemort, and he hates himself for feeling a jump in his throat at even thinking the name. With the figure there, right in front of him, smiling like an old friend visiting for afternoon tea, like this is all somehow a game and James hasn’t got the joke, there is no need for fear or false pride. It’s too late. 

“I think you will die bravely,” said the figure, and it sneers, just slightly. “As if it matters.”

“It does,” says James, and is amazed he isn’t trembling. He’s imagined this a thousand times, how it would be when he faced Voldemort, as he knew he would. Sometimes he laughed about it with Sirius, sometimes he discussed it seriously with Dumbledore. But he’s always known, oh yes. And it occurs to him again that someone must have told Voldemort where they were. He doesn’t want to ask, doesn’t want to know. He can die preserving his love for his friends, at least. 

“It does,” he repeats, and the sudden rush of fury is animal, is Gryffindor, is rash and proud and blinding and terribly stupid. “I’m not afraid of you, you know.” 

And in the moment as he balls his fists and lunges at Voldemort, and Voldemort raises his wand, their eyes meet and James’ last triumph is that Voldemort knows, in that moment, that James Potter is not afraid of him. Afraid of losing Lily and Harry, afraid of whichever of his friends could do this to him, but not afraid of Voldemort, not afraid of death. As the green light flares and there is no time for pain or remorse, those red eyes narrow in something close to rage, that there was no fear here, no surrender. James still won. James hopes Voldemort remembers this, always. 


End file.
